Deo Gloria
Sermon for December 8, 2024
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: Luke 3:1-6
Theme: Prepare the Way for the Lord!
- Listen to the voice of God’s messenger.
- Repent of your sins.
- Look forward to seeing God’s salvation.
So how are your preparations for Christmas coming? Did you get all of your lights put up yet? How about your Christmas tree? How about your presents? Still have a few more to get? What about the baking–the Christmas cookies and the peanut brittle? How’s that coming? There’s a lot involved in getting ready for Christmas. And with just over two weeks to go, it might be a scramble for some of us to get everything done. In the midst of all of our preparations, though, it’s important that we not lose sight of the goal. The goal is to be ready for Christmas, to be ready to celebrate the coming of Christ our Lord. You see, you can be ready for Christmas in an outward sense–you can have your house decked out in lights and your tree trimmed and your presents bought and wrapped and your freezer filled with all sorts of goodies–and yet still not be ready for Christmas. In order to be truly prepared for Christmas we need to do more than simply prepare our homes. We also have to prepare our hearts, so that we are ready to receive our Savior and King.
And I know just the person who can help us with that. His name is John the Baptist and his mission was to prepare the way for the Lord! We hear about him and his ministry in the third chapter of the Gospel of Luke, beginning at v. 1. (Read text.)
John the Baptist was a very special person. He was the only son of Zechariah and Elizabeth, a son who was born to them in their old age. So naturally he occupied a very special place in their hearts. And yet, John was special for another reason as well.
He had been commissioned by God to serve as the forerunner of the promised Messiah. Back in Biblical times a king would often send a messenger or herald before making a visit to a certain country or city. That messenger was to announce his coming so the people there would have adequate time to prepare for the king’s visit. John was to perform a similar function. He was to serve as a messenger or herald for the King of kings, Jesus Christ, the Son of God. John was to announce the Savior’s coming and help prepare the people to receive him. In short, he was to prepare the way for the Lord.
That had been made clear already before John was born. Remember what the angel had said to his father Zechariah?
He will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous–to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.(Luke 1:15-17)
Yes, John’s job was to prepare God’s people for the coming of the Lord.
And John did his job. Luke is very precise in telling us the time that John began his ministry. He says it took place in the 15th year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar. Tiberius ruled the Roman empire from 14-37 A.D.. Consequently, the fifteenth year of his reign would have been 29 A.D. Luke also mentions Pontius Pilate, who served as governor of Judea from 26-37 A.D.. Luke is careful to pinpoint the exact time that John began his ministry because he wants to establish John and his ministry as a historical fact. The story of John the Baptist is not some far-fetched fairytale. It really happened, in time, in history, at this precise period in history. Of course, if John and his ministry are a historical fact, then the same is true of Jesus and his ministry. It’s not some fictional fairytale. It really happened, in time, in history, at this precise period in history.
Luke is also careful to point out something else about John the Baptist and his ministry. They had been foretold in the Old Testament Scriptures. Seven hundred years before this, through the lips of the prophet Isaiah, God had announced that he would send someone to prepare the way for the Savior he had promised. Luke quotes that prophecy in verses 4-6: “A voice of one calling in the desert: ‘Prepare the way for the LORD; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God’”(40:3). John was that voice in the desert. He was the messenger God had sent to prepare the way for the coming of his Son. And people came from far and wide to listen to him.
You and I need to do the same as we prepare ourselves for Christmas, as we prepare to celebrate the coming of our Lord. We need to take time and listen to the voice of God’s messenger. In my opinion that is the single, greatest danger posed by the holiday season. We get so busy with everything else–with buying presents and decorating our homes and baking Christmas goodies and writing Christmas cards–that we don’t have time to listen to the message of God’s spokesman. Why is that so many of us right here in our congregation cannot make it to our mid-week Advent services? Is it because the services are so dull and boring? Is it because the weather has been so terrible lately? No. It’s because we’re too busy. We don’t have time. We have so many other things we need to do.
As so often is the case in life, you have to make time for the things that are important; and that includes making the time to properly prepare our hearts for the coming of our Lord. Take time out from the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. Take a break from all the preparations that still need to be made and listen to the voice of God’s messengers. Listen to the voice of John the Baptist, the messenger God sent to prepare the way for the promised Messiah. Listen to the voice of the God’s messengers today, the pastors God has sent to prepare your hearts for the coming of the Lord. Listen to the voice of God’s Son, Jesus Christ, God’s ultimate spokesman, as he speaks to you from his Word and prepares your heart for the celebration of his coming. Yes, take time to listen, to carefully listen to the voice of God’s messenger and prepare the way for the Lord.
The message John proclaimed as he prepared the people for the coming of the Lord was a message of repentance. Luke describes it like this in v. 3 of our text: “He went into all the country around the Jordan, preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.” The word Luke uses for repentance has the meaning of “changing one’s mind.” Through his preaching John intended to change the minds of his listeners, to change their minds about their sins.
He didn’t beat around the bush either. Luke gives us a sample of John’s hard-hitting approach in the verses that follow our text: “You brood of vipers,” he said to the crowds that had gathered to hear him. “Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. … The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire”(vv. 7-9). Back in John’s day there were people who didn’t see sin as being all that serious, people who felt they were good enough for God just the way they were. Through his sharp and stinging words John forced the people to look at things a bit differently. He led them to see how serious their sins really were. He led them to repent and to turn to God for forgiveness.
He intends to do the same with us. Through his powerful preaching John intends to lead us to repentance, to change our minds about sin. Many people today look at sin the same way, as not really all that serious. “What’s the big deal?” they might say. “So I commit a few sins. So I tell a few lies. So I swear a little now and then. So I had a little too much to drink the other night at the Christmas party. So what? Nobody’s perfect.” It’s almost as if they think God is only concerned about the really bad sins and is inclined to overlook all the rest. You and I can be tempted to adopt a similar attitude toward sin. We might think that because we are God’s children or because we are such “good” church members who go to church every week, God will sort of ignore our sins or look the other way when they happen, like when we tell one of those little, white lies, when we gossip about our neighbor who lives across the street, when we let down our hair at the company Christmas party, or when we indulge ourselves in a sleazy movie or some sleazy, romantic novel. “It’s not really that bad. God doesn’t really care about things like that, does he?”
Yes, he does. To God sin is serious business. Big sins, little sins, black sins, white sins–it’s all the same in his book. Every sin is serious, because it is a violation of his holy will. It’s like a slap in his face. Go to your boss once or to the president of your company and slap him or her in the face and see how they respond. Do you think they’re going to stand for such disrespect on the part of one of their employees? Thing is we’re not talking here about your boss or about the president of your company. We’re talking about the CEO of the universe, the almighty God of heaven and earth. To him every sin is a serious offense and deserves to be punished. If you have any doubt about that, perhaps you ought to listen to what it says in the book of Hebrews: “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left, but only a fearful expectation of judgment and of raging fire (10:26+27). Still think your sins aren’t really all that serious? It’s time to change your mind. It’s time to change your attitude toward sin and begin to look at it the way God does, as detestable and damnable. It’s time to repent of your sins and look to God for forgiveness.
That was the ultimate goal of John’s message. As Luke tells us, he preached a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. John’s objective was not to lead the people to despair. Rather his goal was to lead the people to repent of their sins, so they might receive forgiveness. When those who were listening did repent, John would point them to the Savior God had promised to send, the Savior for whom he was preparing the way. After doing so, he would baptize them in the waters of the Jordan and assure them that their sins were forgiven.
God’s goal is the same today. Through the message of the law proclaimed by John or one of his other messengers God seeks to lead his people to repentance, which paves the way for the message of the Gospel. He then directs them to the Savior whom he promised and sent, that Savior who was born in a stable in Bethlehem. How eager our hearts are to hear that wonderful news, the message of pardon and peace in Jesus Christ our Savior! That’s the way God prepares our hearts for the celebration of his coming.
A third thing John did in preparing the way for the Lord was to urge the people of his day to look forward to seeing God’s salvation. The people of Israel had been waiting for God to fulfill his promise of salvation for quite some time. Several thousand years had passed since God had first announced that promise back in the Garden of Eden. Over the centuries God had repeated that promise time and time again, but the Savior still had not come–until now. Now the time was near. The forerunner had already begun his work, preparing the way before him. Soon the Savior himself would come. Soon they would see him with their very own eyes. Soon they would see God’s plan of salvation brought to completion. How important it was for them to be ready!
You and I are no longer waiting for God to send a Savior. We know that promise has been fulfilled. We know the Savior has been sent. We even know how our Savior accomplished our salvation.
Nevertheless, we are still waiting. We are waiting for God to keep another promise he has made: his promise to come again. We look forward to that day with great anticipation, the day we will see our Lord and Savior with our very own eyes, coming in the clouds of heaven. We look forward to that day when our souls and bodies will finally be set free from sin and all its effects; the day when death and Satan will finally be destroyed; the day when the pain and sorrow and trouble we experienced here in this life will finally be taken away and replaced with unending peace and joy. That day could be today or tomorrow and maybe even Christmas Eve. All the more reason to be prepared, don’t you think, to be properly prepared for the coming of Christ?
As we busily prepare for the celebration of Christmas, let’s not forget to prepare our hearts as well. Like God’s people many centuries ago, let’s listen to the message of the forerunner and prepare the way for the coming of our King. Amen.